regarding gatling/minigun

[Aiki-Knight]

Yeah but who can carry thousands of rounds? Seriously - ammo is heavy. Thousands of rounds would weigh hundreds of pounds.

[TrashMan]

Caseless ammo...you can squeeze 3-4 times as much ammo in the same space.

F'course, depending on the RoF even 1000 rounds would be depleted within seconds. A microgun can fire at 6000RPM or 100 bullets per second (for comparison, standard assault rifles usually fire 3-4 bullets per second, with some newer ones more, the M-60 fires 10 bps)

At 3000RPM (which is still hellafast! ) your minigun would spit out 50 bps ... if he were to carry a total of 1000 bullets, that would be enough for 20 seconds of max speed fire. That's why you usually fire in short, controlled bursts and have RoF settings.



Or laser miniguns....just carry a huge battery/generator on your back

[Winter]

At 3000RPM (which is still hellafast! ) your minigun would spit out 50 bps ... if he were to carry a total of 1000 bullets, that would be enough for 20 seconds of max speed fire. That's why you usually fire in short, controlled bursts and have RoF settings.

The weapon would still be unnecessarily heavy, take far too long to spin up to be used as an assault rifle, and run out of ammo far too quickly to be used as a machine gun. So you're really combining the worst of both worlds in the worst way.

Regards,
Winter

[TrashMan]

The weapon would still be unnecessarily heavy, take far too long to spin up to be used as an assault rifle, and run out of ammo far too quickly to be used as a machine gun. So you're really combining the worst of both worlds in the worst way.

Methinks the ammo would make most of the weight.

With advanced materials and minituarization you could make the gun itself far lighter. Then you can get creative with the way it fires. You can have a trigger that controls the spinning and a second one that starts shooting..Thus you can spin the gun up to full speed and carry it around spinning.
Or if you create a god enough rotor, the spin acceleration can be faster, thus shortening the time needed for a spin up/spin down.

Ammo, as always, is the biggest problem, but it's not like the army doesn't use other weapons that have ammo issues. Shoulder-mounted rocket launchers? You usually get one missile - especially with those integrated systems.

That said, every weapon has it's specific uses and employment doctrine. A minigun would be used against superior enemy numbers, preferably clustered enemies - it's not an assault rifle and shouldn't used as such, it's a very specific support weapon.
You wouldn't carry a minigun if you expected a protraced engagement, and you would have other soldiers carrying extra ammo for it when you do carry it into battle.
One would use short, controlled bursts to conserve ammo and proper RoF setting for the situation. A single 1-second burst should be enough to kill anything you're pointing at(and it's sorroundings).

[Winter]

That said, every weapon has it's specific uses and employment doctrine. A minigun would be used against superior enemy numbers, preferably clustered enemies - it's not an assault rifle and shouldn't used as such, it's a very specific support weapon.
You wouldn't carry a minigun if you expected a protraced engagement, and you would have other soldiers carrying extra ammo for it when you do carry it into battle.
One would use short, controlled bursts to conserve ammo and proper RoF setting for the situation. A single 1-second burst should be enough to kill anything you're pointing at(and it's sorroundings).

You're still missing the point. There are no short controlled bursts with a minigun. It was not made for short controlled bursts and will never be able to compete with a weapon that doesn't require spinning up barrels in a twitchy urban combat scenario. It will also never be as light, as manoeuvrable or as useful as an ordinary assault rifle or machine gun in ANY role it could possibly fulfill.

Miniguns are completely unworkable as an infantry weapon and no amount of future technology wank is going to change that. Ever.

Regards,
Winter

[TrashMan]

You're still missing the point. There are no short controlled bursts with a minigun. It was not made for short controlled bursts and will never be able to compete with a weapon that doesn't require spinning up barrels in a twitchy urban combat scenario. It will also never be as light, as manoeuvrable or as useful as an ordinary assault rifle or machine gun in ANY role it could possibly fulfill.

Miniguns are completely unworkable as an infantry weapon and no amount of future technology wank is going to change that. Ever.

Tell that to the GAU-8 avenger.. It can fire in 1 or 2 second bursts. In fact, it's customary:


The Avenger's rate of fire was originally selectable, 2,100 rounds per minute (rpm) in the low setting, or 4,200 rpm in the high setting. Later this was changed to a fixed rate of 3,900 rpm. In practice, the cannon is limited to one and two-second bursts to avoid overheating and conserve ammunition; barrel life is also a factor, since the USAF has specified a minimum 21,000-round life for each set of barrels.


regarding spinup time:

The GSh-6-23 differs from most American multi-barreled aircraft cannon in that it is gas-operated, rather than externally powered via an electric, hydraulic, or pneumatic system. Although the engineering difficulties involved in producing a gas-operated rotary cannon with such a high rate of fire are considerable, they create less of a drain on the aircraft's power systems, and they accelerate to their maximum rate of fire much more quickly. There is less "spin-up" time for the barrels than with an externally powered rotary cannon, a significant advantage in aerial combat, where the window of opportunity to place multiple rounds on target can be vanishingly short.

The GSh-6-23 has an extremely high rate of fire, with maximum cyclic rates of 9,000 to 10,000 rounds per minute. Compared to the U.S. M61 Vulcan, the GSh-6-23 fires 50-66% more rounds per minute, has a heavier projectile, but lower muzzle velocity. The rapid rate of fire exhausts ammunition quickly: the MiG-31(800 rounds maximum) aircraft, for example, with 260 rounds of ammunition, would empty its magazine in less than two seconds.

Miniguns are completely unworkable as an infantry weapon and no amount of future technology wank is going to change that. Ever.

Miniguns are not supposed to be main infantry weapons. They are specialized support weapons, like bazookas or LAWs. And apparently, they are workable.

[Falion]

I'm not really too sure a mini-gun has that much of a role in such a game as this. That is just my opinion of course, but I'd rather see more alien technologies to effectively research and make into effective human weaponry.

That said, never say never, in regards to what the future may actually hold. At one point in history, the locomotive was told to the public that it would travel at more than 20-30 MPH. Many "intellectuals" held the belief that such was completely impossible...as at such a speed, all of the air would be sucked out of the train and everyone aboard would die. Of course we laugh at such today, but they really believed it. Also, at one point the US patent office, or someone involved with it I believe said, "Everything that can be invented already has been invented, and there is no further need for any more patents".

Good thing no one listened to that idiotic statement ROFL, but the point is who actually knows what future tech will allow for weapons in the future...it is pure speculation.

[Winter]

Tell that to the GAU-8 avenger.. It can fire in 1 or 2 second bursts. In fact, it's customary:


The Avenger's rate of fire was originally selectable, 2,100 rounds per minute (rpm) in the low setting, or 4,200 rpm in the high setting. Later this was changed to a fixed rate of 3,900 rpm. In practice, the cannon is limited to one and two-second bursts to avoid overheating and conserve ammunition; barrel life is also a factor, since the USAF has specified a minimum 21,000-round life for each set of barrels.


regarding spinup time:

The GSh-6-23 differs from most American multi-barreled aircraft cannon in that it is gas-operated, rather than externally powered via an electric, hydraulic, or pneumatic system. Although the engineering difficulties involved in producing a gas-operated rotary cannon with such a high rate of fire are considerable, they create less of a drain on the aircraft's power systems, and they accelerate to their maximum rate of fire much more quickly. There is less "spin-up" time for the barrels than with an externally powered rotary cannon, a significant advantage in aerial combat, where the window of opportunity to place multiple rounds on target can be vanishingly short.

The GSh-6-23 has an extremely high rate of fire, with maximum cyclic rates of 9,000 to 10,000 rounds per minute. Compared to the U.S. M61 Vulcan, the GSh-6-23 fires 50-66% more rounds per minute, has a heavier projectile, but lower muzzle velocity. The rapid rate of fire exhausts ammunition quickly: the MiG-31(800 rounds maximum) aircraft, for example, with 260 rounds of ammunition, would empty its magazine in less than two seconds.


Miniguns are not supposed to be main infantry weapons. They are specialized support weapons, like bazookas or LAWs. And apparently, they are workable.

Well done, you've copy-pasted an entirely irrelevant article about a huge gasoline-powered aircraft-mounted gatling gun into a discussion about infantry weapons.

Regards,
Winter

[TrashMan]

Well done, you've copy-pasted an entirely irrelevant article about a huge gasoline-powered aircraft-mounted gatling gun into a discussion about infantry weapons.

You never heard of a thing called MINIATURIZATION?

Besides, it's the principle behind the articles, the workings - scale can be changed. Obviously you're not gonna use 30 or 20mm shells for a infantry-based gattling cannon, and thus the weapons itself would be smaller.

Note that you said gattling weapons don't fire in bursts - I proven that they can and do.

You then said that spin up time is too long - I shown you working ways it can be improved.

You mention the ammo issue - I've show you that there are ways to store and carry a bit more ammo (not much), but more importantly, that having lots of ammo isn't the most important thing in weapons. There are so many big, single use weapons out there.

So to conclude. Gattling based weapons aren't used by todays military as infantry weapons. (probably because the government won't waste $$$ on it when it can research laz0r weapons and invest in newer jets)
That doesn't mean that they can't be used, as the technology is more or less there.
Last, but not least, the game takes place quite some time in the future, and the last attempt at infantry-carrier gattling weapon was back in the 80's.

If you don't want such a weapon in the game, fine...but don't tell me it's impossible for such weapons to work if you haven't done your homework on the subject. Half the sci-fi plasma/particle/whatever weapons are more redicolous than that (specificely, why waste money and time trying to produce something like that when simpler technology works just as effectively; and secondly, a foot soldier's firepower will always be limited - after all, what's the point of heavy veichle support and urban fighting if you're single soldier cna nuke the city he's supposed to protect?)

[Kildor]

miniaturisation, especially miniaturisation of weapon has its own limits. Especially, if we talk about powder weapon.

And gatling must be big and heavy weapon — it need this to be a gatling.

PS: sorry, but 'nanorounds' with 'nanobullet' is worst and foolish weapon that can be.

[TrashMan]

miniaturisation, especially miniaturisation of weapon has its own limits. Especially, if we talk about powder weapon.

It does, but limit hasn't been reached yet.

And gatling must be big and heavy weapon

[Aiki-Knight]

You never heard of a thing called MINIATURIZATION?

Besides, it's the principle behind the articles, the workings - scale can be changed. Obviously you're not gonna use 30 or 20mm shells for a infantry-based gattling cannon, and thus the weapons itself would be smaller.

Note that you said gattling weapons don't fire in bursts - I proven that they can and do.

You then said that spin up time is too long - I shown you working ways it can be improved.

You mention the ammo issue - I've show you that there are ways to store and carry a bit more ammo (not much), but more importantly, that having lots of ammo isn't the most important thing in weapons. There are so many big, single use weapons out there.

So to conclude. Gattling based weapons aren't used by todays military as infantry weapons. (probably because the government won't waste $$$ on it when it can research laz0r weapons and invest in newer jets)
That doesn't mean that they can't be used, as the technology is more or less there.
Last, but not least, the game takes place quite some time in the future, and the last attempt at infantry-carrier gattling weapon was back in the 80's.

If you don't want such a weapon in the game, fine...but don't tell me it's impossible for such weapons to work if you haven't done your homework on the subject. Half the sci-fi plasma/particle/whatever weapons are more redicolous than that (specificely, why waste money and time trying to produce something like that when simpler technology works just as effectively; and secondly, a foot soldier's firepower will always be limited - after all, what's the point of heavy veichle support and urban fighting if you're single soldier cna nuke the city he's supposed to protect?)

I'm sorry but I spent 6 weeks in Germany in '89 hauling around an M249 and two ammo boxes on exercise, plus regular loadout webbing, helmet, and pack. It was heavy, and I was darned glad when that exercise was over and I could hand that weapon in. The M249 is a .223 calibre weapon, and it and its ammo are still heavy. Those advocating a gatling gun, which together with its ammo would weigh at least hundreds of pounds, need to consider more than just miniturization. A minigun is designed to take advantage of a vehicle's cargo-carrying capacity to make a heavy-yield weapon. Maybe it can fire in bursts. Honestly, so what? Unless you eliminate ammo and make the gun impossibly light, it just can't happen. You need to understand the purpose of that kind of weapon. It's too big, and too heavy for ground soldiers. And anyone's who's lugged even an M-16 plus 6 mags around on exercise doesn't need to be convinced. Even a regular squad-level machine gun is heavy. The M60 and similar 7.62 machine guns were a major burden. Machine gunners usually need a second person to carry ammo. Even the .50 cal is basically a vehicle-mounted weapon. I never saw anyone carry one while I was in the army.

Consider also that a gatling gun's extremely high fire rate is intended to concentrate rounds on a hard target. You don't need to pump a hundred rounds into an enemy soldier, even if you could manage a one-second burst and get your rounds on target. Which you couldn't, because the recoil would knock you over. A hundred rounds on target is meant to destroy tanks, hard vehicles, and incoming missiles, as in the Phalanx Close-In-Weapons-System.

The soldiers in UFO:AI are commandos; they need to be mobile and move fast. They're not intended to engage super-heavy targets for which rotary cannons are deployed. Even if you could somehow make a rotary cannon that a soldier could carry, it would waste all its ammo on one target. Plus, how are you going to aim it? Rifles and handguns, even rocket/missile launchers are fired from the shoulder - a rotary cannon would be fired from the hip. And as anyone who's been on a real firing range knows from experience, firing from the hip is almost useless. Look at the Iraq footage - soldiers there run with their weapons at the shoulder-aimed position.

My opinion: keep the gatling gun out of the game, period. It doesn't belong, it's out of place, and it detracts from the focus of the game. UFO:AI excels as a proper squad-tactics game. A gatling gun, while fun I admit, would be ridiculous.

[TrashMan]

I'm sorry but I spent 6 weeks in Germany in '89 hauling around an M249 and two ammo boxes on exercise, plus regular loadout webbing, helmet, and pack. It was heavy, and I was darned glad when that exercise was over and I could hand that weapon in. The M249 is a .223 calibre weapon, and it and its ammo are still heavy. Those advocating a gatling gun, which together with its ammo would weigh at least hundreds of pounds, need to consider more than just miniturization. A minigun is designed to take advantage of a vehicle's cargo-carrying capacity to make a heavy-yield weapon. Maybe it can fire in bursts. Honestly, so what? Unless you eliminate ammo and make the gun impossibly light, it just can't happen. You need to understand the purpose of that kind of weapon. It's too big, and too heavy for ground soldiers. And anyone's who's lugged even an M-16 plus 6 mags around on exercise doesn't need to be convinced. Even a regular squad-level machine gun is heavy. The M60 and similar 7.62 machine guns were a major burden. Machine gunners usually need a second person to carry ammo. Even the .50 cal is basically a vehicle-mounted weapon. I never saw anyone carry one while I was in the army.

Duh.. As I said - caseless amo to reduce weight. New polymers and alloys + miniaturization = even more weight loss. Even with that, it would still be damn heavy (ammo, ammo, ammo). That's what POWER ARMOR is for. Extra muscle and stablity..not to mentions servos that are programed to counteract the recoil and wobble.
If a weapon like a minigun of some sorts were to be used, power armor should be a requirement for equipping one.

Consider also that a gatling gun's extremely high fire rate is intended to concentrate rounds on a hard target. You don't need to pump a hundred rounds into an enemy soldier, even if you could manage a one-second burst and get your rounds on target. Which you couldn't, because the recoil would knock you over.

It's also used against multiple targets, since it's an AREA weapon
And aliens have heavily armored and big targets among them.

The soldiers in UFO:AI are commandos; they need to be mobile and move fast. They're not intended to engage super-heavy targets for which rotary cannons are deployed.

Soldiers in UFO are soldiers - they need to be as mobile or as heavily armed as the situation requires. Adaptability means variability. A huge choice in weapons, equipment and tactics.
If you're defending your base you don't need mobiltiy- you need firepower to keep pesky aliens out of the corridor. And, like I said, a minigun is very effective against multiple light targets, or big armored ones.

IIRC, more ground veichles are being introduced into the game -for both sides. There's your big heavy target for missile launchers and big guns.

[Telok]

It's also used against multiple targets, since it's an AREA weapon

This is actually the only real role I can see for a minigun in the game. Having a cone of bullets for clumps of aliens. Something like a SMG long burst with machinegun bullets.

However I can also see altering the MG firing options to a 12/16/20 TU set with 6/14/22 ammo usage. This would give you something very close to what you need without adding another weapon. Another option would be a heavy support laser with a very high RoF but laser pistol damage. Although for me, the grenade launcher works really, really well for this at moderate ranges.

For hard targets a LAW rocket type weapon would be best. Currently my grenadiers carry rocket launchers in their packs while snipers and SMGs carry spare rockets. Unfortunately the rockets see almost zero use because they are so large, and end up being one shot weapons anyways.

A minigun on a vehicle is fine. The primary problem with the weapons is the extreme ammunition usage, vehicular cargo capacity allows for this. It is questionable if caseless ammunition would fully compensate for that.

[BTAxis]

The vehicles we have aren't that big. Nothing like a real tank. They aren't really big enough to carry loads of ammo.